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Biological grains farming good for soil and bottom line

Grain grower, Steve Nicholson, from central west New South Wales applies liquid bacteria into the soil while sowing his crops to improve soil health and save fertiliser costs.

Biological farming is a widely used term, that's getting increasingly difficult to define.

But what grain grower Steve Nicholson, in central west New South Wales, is trialling is a very specific form of this alternate method of farming.

The Forbes cropper is trialling injecting two types of live bacteria into his soil while sowing, as a substitute to chemical fertilisers, to cut costs and improve soil health.

"One is a nitrogen fixing bacteria and the other one is a phosphate solubilising bacteria," says Mr Nicholson.

"They are free living, so they don't have to be actually inside the root of the plant, such as rhizobium needs to be inside the root of the plant of a legume to produce nitrogen."

The farmer currently applies the bacteria after mixing it with water to make a liquid, which is dripped into the ground while sowing.

But Steve Nicholson says that a new way of application saves that whole process, by coating the seed with the bacteria at the time of seed treatment prior to sowing.

The grain grower is trialling this method to be more environmentally sustainable, improve soil health and cut costs on chemical fertilisers.

He says that while the yield doesn't necessarily increase, it makes the plants more robust.

"The biology is available when the plant wants it rather than when you put it there, so the plants tend to be more robust, more drought tolerant, and a little bit stronger; bigger root systems, just a healthier plant, because it's biological nitrogen and phosphorous, not chemical," he says.

He says the new method could potentially lead to significant savings for grain growers industry wide.

"Our own anecdotal evidence here on the farm is that, by the time you add in the cost of putting the biology on and take off the amount of granular fertiliser we're no longer using, we've got a saving of 20 per cent," he says.